Category: Part-Time President

Donald Trump Takes 15th Golf Trip in 11 Weeks Since Becoming President

Donald Trump is taking his 15th golf trip in the 11 weeks since becoming President, as he spends another weekend at one of his own luxury resorts.

The President is coming off the back of a high-stakes summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has closed a sixth of his country’s golf courses since 2011 and will not play a sport which maintains a reputation for decadence and corruption in China.

But President Xi left the President’s luxury Mar-a-Lago resort on Friday night, and by Saturday morning Mr Trump was on the links at his International Golf Club in Florida, the White House press pool was informed.

During a campaign rally last year, Mr Trump referred to a string of his golf clubs when claiming: “You know what – and I love golf – but if I were in the White House, I don’t think I’d ever see Turnberry again, I don’t think I’d ever see Doral again, I own Doral in Miami, I don’t think I’d ever see many of the places that I have.

“I don’t ever think that I’d see anything, I just wanna stay in the White House and work my ass off, make great deals, right? Who’s gonna leave? I mean, who’s gonna leave?”

He is now back on the green for the 15th time since 20 January. The trip also marks the 10th weekend in a row President Trump has spent at one of his own properties.

Thanks in particular to increased security bills at the waterfront Mar-a-Lago resort, he is on course to spend more on travel in a single year than the $97 million Barack Obama spent during his eight years in office.

The billionaire has already racked up $23 million in travel bills, at roughly 10 times the rate of his predecessor.

While still a private citizen, the billionaire tycoon repeatedly criticised former President Barack Obama for playing golf rather than attending to his presidential duties.

“Can you believe that,with all of the problems and difficulties facing the U.S., President Obama spent the day playing golf.,” he wrote in one 2014 tirade.

In a similar attack back in 2013, Fox News pundit and staunch Trump backer Sean Hannity wrote: “Glad our arrogant Pres is enjoying his taxpayer funded golf outing after announcing the US should take military action against Syria.”

In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s cruise missile barrage against a Syrian air base, the tweet is being re-circulated on social media.

(h/t The Independent)

President Heads to Trump Golf Club in Virginia for “Meetings”

President Trump went to Trump National Golf Club in Virginia on Saturday for meetings.

It was not immediately clear from pool reports who the president was planning to meet with.

It is the president’s eighth weekend in a row making a trip to a Trump-owned property.

Trump frequently criticized former President Obama for golfing on weekends and vacations during his presidency.

Trump’s visit to Virginia comes one day after House Republicans pulled legislation to repeal and replace ObamaCare moments before a planned vote. Repealing ObamaCare was a key campaign promise of Trump and most GOP lawmakers and candidates over the last few election cycles.

(h/t The Hill)

Trump to Spend 7th Consecutive Weekend at Trump-Branded Property, at Enormous Cost to Taxpayers

President Trump doesn’t want to spend federal dollars on after-school programs, meals for poor people, or heating assistance that helps keep folks alive.

But he has no problem wasting more than $3 million a pop to spend weekends at his private Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. Trump has already made four trips there since becoming president on January 20, and on Friday he confirmed he’s headed there this weekend for the fifth time.

Despite vowing during his campaign that he “would rarely leave the White House because there’s so much work to be done” and “would not be a president who took vacations” because “you don’t have time to take time off,” Trump has visited Trump-branded properties each of the past six weekends. That streak will hit seven when Trump lands at Mar-a-Lago later Friday.

In fact, Trump has spent time at Trump-branded property every weekend of his presidency other than the very first, when he created chaos throughout the country by signing a Muslim ban executive order that was later stayed by a federal court.

As Quartz reported on Friday, after this weekend, Trump will have already spent about $16.5 million on trips to Mar-a-Lago. For that amount, Meals on Wheels could feed 5,967 seniors for a year and after school programs could feed 114,583 children for a year.

On Thursday, Office of Management and Budget director Mick Mulvaney defended the draconian cuts included in the Trump administration’s proposed budget by arguing that the federal government can’t ask “a coal miner in West Virginia or a single mom in Detroit to pay for” programs like the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. But one wonders whether those struggling Americans would rather have public radio or dole out their share of the $3.3 million a self-proclaimed billionaire is spending each weekend to mingle with his ludicrously wealthy club members down in Florida.

(h/t ThinkProgress)

Media

Donald Trump Was Seething With Rage Over Reception of Wiretapping Claims

A friend of Donald Trump‘s says the president was more angry this weekend than he had seen him “in a long time.”

Christopher Ruddy, the CEO of right-wing magazine and website Newsmax and a member of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, wrote that he spoke to Trump twice on Saturday. The conversations followed Trump’s explosive and unsubstantiated Saturday claim that President Barack Obama had Trump Tower’s “wires tapped” before the 2016 presidential election.

Trump has not given any evidence to back up the claim, while a spokesman for Obama has denied that he ordered wiretapping of Trump. Still, Trump believes his accusations will eventually be proven, Ruddy noted in a Newsmax post.

“I spoke with the president twice yesterday about the wiretap story. I haven’t seen him this p—– off in a long time. When I mentioned Obama ‘denials’ about the wiretaps, he shot back: ‘This will be investigated, it will all come out. I will be proven right,” Ruddy wrote.

Ruddy told CNN that Trump did not go into detail about his sources for the claim. The network previously reported that Trump got the accusations from right-wing media reports, not government sources.

Trump’s accusations followed the latest backlash about his top advisors’ contacts with Russia. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a former senator who advised the Trump campaign, said last week he would recuse himself from all Trump campaign related investigations after he appeared to mislead senators during his January confirmation hearing about his conversations with Russia’s ambassador to the United States.

The president argued that Sessions should not distance himself from any Russia-related probes.

Ruddy, a Florida resident and longtime Mar-a-Lago member, also donated the maximum $2,700 to Trump’s campaign committee and $100,000 to a joint fundraising effort with the Republican Party.

(h/t CNBC)

Donald Trump Takes His 4th Vacation in 6 Weeks

President Donald Trump returns to South Florida again Friday and will stay at his Mar-A-Lago estate in Palm Beach.

Trump arrived in Orlando at 1:08 p.m. and was greeted by Gov. Rick Scott. U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and Education Secretary Betty DeVos were on Air Force One, along with Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner and daughter Ivanka, according to the press pool report.

Trump visited Orlando to tour Saint Andrew Catholic School, where he visited a fourth-grade class. Scott, who campaigned on expanding school choices for parents, and Rubio joined Trump at the school.

Students gave Trump hand-drawn cards celebrating Florida’s birthday.

Trump beckoned two students who had welcomed him to pose for a picture, and told them, “We’re going to make you famous, OK?”

(h/t The Miami Herald)

Caught in Lie, White House Reverse Trump’s Golf Game

President Donald Trump played a full round of golf Sunday, enjoying once again a habit he regularly assailed Barack Obama for. After initially saying Trump had only played a few holes, the White House reversed itself Monday after professional golfer Rory McIlroy posted on his website that he had played 18 holes with the president.

“As stated yesterday the President played golf. He intended to play a few holes and decided to play longer,” White House spokesperson Sarah Sanders said Monday. “He also had a full day of meetings, calls and interviews for the new NSA, which he is continuing today before returning to Washington, D.C. tonight.”

This weekend marks Trump’s third straight at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, which he has taken to calling the “Winter White House.”

Trump regularly panned Obama for his penchant for hitting the links, but Trump made it to the golf course far faster than the previous two presidents, waiting just two weeks before playing his first round. Trump recently golfed with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and is expected to conduct more such golf diplomacy.

(h/t Politico)

Trump Is Going on Vacation for the Third Weekend in a Row

President Donald Trump will reportedly return to his vacation home at his Mar-a-Lago Club for the third weekend in a row, the Palm Beach Post reports. This also means that Trump has spent most of his weekends as president so far at his vacation home — the two exceptions being his inauguration weekend in Washington, D.C., and the weekend of January 28.

What’s wrong with Trump taking so much time away from the White House? For one thing, traveling as the president doesn’t come cheap. While presidents do pay for their own lodging, Politico reports that weekend trips similar to the ones Trump has taken cost taxpayers more than $3 million due to the Secret Service detail and Air Force One expenses. That also doesn’t take into account the logistical challenges that come with presidential travel, including special advisories from the Federal Aviation Administration and other transportation departments.

In Trump’s case, it can also be risky to spend so much time in public when classified national security concerns come up and an action plan isn’t in place for dealing with them privately, The New York Times reports. This past weekend, Trump and Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe received word of a North Korean ballistic missile test while they were dining publicly at Trump’s club, according to CNN. Photos surfaced on Facebook, taken by a private citizen and Mar-a-Lago member, of the president and his team reading documents in a public part of club and using their cell phones to look at the material, a possible breach of security protocol. (Hackers can tap into phone cameras and see what’s on those pages, The Verge points out.)

On Monday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that “no classified material” was discussed in public view, according to The Washington Post. Democrats were quick to point out the disregard for proper protocol when discussing sensitive matters in public view. Representative Nancy Pelosi of California wrote in a tweet, “There’s no excuse for letting an international crisis play out in front of a bunch of country club members like dinner theater.”

Additionally, Rhode Island senator Sheldon Whitehouse and New Mexico senator Tom Udall publicly condemned Trump’s actions in a statement, according to The New York Times. The two senators said, “This is America’s foreign policy, not this week’s episode of Saturday Night Live. We urge our Republican colleagues to start taking this Administration’s rash and unprofessional conduct seriously before there are consequences we all regret.”

Ironically, early in his campaign, Trump specifically claimed that he wouldn’t vacation often if he were president. “I would rarely leave the White House because there’s so much work to be done,” Trump said in 2015. “I would not be a president who took vacations. I would not be a president that takes time off. You don’t have time to take time off.”

He also attacked Barack Obama on Twitter multiple times during his presidency for taking vacations. “Obama’s motto: If I don’t go on tax payer funded vacations & constantly fundraise then the terrorists win,” Trump tweeted in August 2014.

“While our wonderful president was out playing golf all day, the TSA is falling apart, just like our government! Airports a total disaster!” he posted in May 2016.

So far, the White House hasn’t commented on Trump’s multiple weekend trips to Mar-a-Lago.

(h/t Teen Vogue)

1 … 17 18 19